The present patent application relates to a tool which has been developed to facilitate the rapid production of “on screen” computer forms, which allow users to print out the forms for physical filing or electronically file the information. In this application the tool shall be called “Aatrix Forms Designer” or “AFD.”
Aatrix Forms Technology Prior to AFD
Earlier software has had “on screen” fill in forms since 1990, at the time limited to the United States Federal Forms W-2, 1099 and 941. Early versions of these forms were implemented by displaying a graphic image of the form, and then overlaying text entry boxes that the user could fill in.
This early method required a fairly time consuming process by which the programmer would have to write the underlying code for all of the textboxes, including the determination of where they physically laid on the graphic.
Another version of the software, produced in April, 1993, was predominantly a programming tool that generated “C” or “Pascal” source code for use within the company's Payroll Series of products. The product consisted of a graphical interface for tracing “text entry” boxes over an existing graphic, then exporting the source code required to produce those text boxes. The source file was merged into the payroll projects and recompiled to produce object code for handling on-screen fill-in forms.
Further enhancements were added to the early product to allow it to generate HTML code for support of clickable graphics on the web, the ability to save and open existing AFD documents, and the addition of “Properties” for each text field that would allow the source code to perform rudimentary checking and formatting of the text data (defining something as a “money” field versus “text”, for example, would only allow numbers to be typed in, and the field would be right aligned.)
The final major enhancement to be added was the ability for the forms designer to add graphical elements such as boxes, lines and text to the form. This allowed the form to function “on its own,” without any underlying graphical field. Because the graphical data was stored in a “pure format,” the resulting forms files were considerably smaller and more accurate, being able to take advantage of the computer's graphics processing capabilities for display and printing.
Other typical solutions involve the use of either graphics or Adobe's Portable Document Format (PDF,) both of which generate significantly larger files. A typical form which may be 100 kilobytes when stored as a GIF (Graphics Interchange Format) or up to a megabyte as a PDF can be stored in as little as 25 kilobytes with the above described format.
The critical piece of early AFD development was the creation of an interpreter, which was a small piece of source code that could be implemented in a program and which would automatically read, present on screen, and process an AFD file. This changed the focus of the tool from one which still required a bit of programmer effort (merging the source code into the project and recompiling) to one in which forms could be developed completely independent of programmers. At the time, the company included a “federal forms set” which consisted of the US Form 941, 943 and several others.
Subsequent to this, the company began its “State Forms” project, by which wage withholding and unemployment forms for all fifty states would be created with the AFD tool by non-programmers and could be implemented without any additional effort by coders. Minor enhancements to both the forms tool itself and the runtime module were required as issues were uncovered during the implementation of the state forms project, but these proved minor and by the end of 1995, Aatrix had available for sale forms for all fifty states.
A version of the AFD Runtime Module was created which was a stand-alone application—it did not need to be included with any other program. The means by which other accounting applications could support the forms was through a published standard called “Universal RectFinder Format” in a document released to the public in October 1995.
In September of 1996, Aatrix Development began a project to bring the state forms processing to the Microsoft Windows platform and for use via the Internet. The first step was agreeing to a file format, as binary data (which the forms were stored in on the MacOS) wouldn't be cross platform. Once that was established, another application was created on the Mac, which would read AFD form files and convert them to plain text for transfer to the Windows computer. This lead to the creation of the current software and accompanying system, which is usable on all platforms.